“Is she dead?”
“Nay, lad. I think she’s cured, by the grace of God.”
“You got the cinchona?”
“Aye.”
“Masterson’s at the junk. It’s time for Gorth. I’ll ask them—his seconds—to postpone until tomorrow. You’re in no state to fight anyone.”
“There’s nae need for you to worry. There’re more ways of killing a snake than stamping its godrotting head off. I’ll be there in an hour.”
“All right, Tai-Pan.” Horatio left in a hurry, Lo Chum with him.
Struan bolted the door and returned to May-may.
She was lying perfectly still in the bed.
And Father Sebastian was taking her pulse. His face was stiff with anxiety. He bent down and listened to her heartbeat. Seconds passed. He raised his head and looked searchingly at Struan. “For a moment I thought . . . but she’s all right. Her heartbeat is terribly slow, but, well, she’s young. With the grace of God . . . the fever’s dead, Mr. Struan. Peruvian cinchona will cure the fever of Happy Valley. How marvelous are the ways of God!”
Struan felt weirdly detached. “Will the fever return?” he asked.
“Perhaps. From time to time. But more cinchona will arrest it—there’s nothing to worry about now. This fever’s
dead. Don’t you understand? She’s cured of malaria.”
“Will she live? You say her heart’s very weak. Will she live?”
“God willing, the chance is good. Very good. But I don’t know for certain.”
“I’ve got to go now,” Struan said, rising. “Would you please stay here till I get back?”
“Yes.” Father Sebastian was going to make the sign of the cross over him, but decided against it. “I cannot bless your departure, Mr. Struan. You’re going to a killing, aren’t you?”
“Man is born to die, Father. I just try to protect mysel’ and mine as best I know how and to choose the time of my dying, that’s all.”
He picked up the fighting iron and tied it to his wrist, then left the house.
As he walked the streets, he felt eyes watching him but paid them no heed. He drew strength from the morning and from the sun, and from the sight and smell of the sea.
It’s a good day to stamp out a snake, he thought. But you’re the one that’s dead. You’ve na the strength to go against Gorth with a fighting iron. Na today.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
There was a large crowd near the junk. Traders, a detachment of Portuguese soldiers under a young officer, seamen. The junk was moored to a jetty off the
pra
ça. When Struan appeared, those who had wagered on him were dismayed. And those who had wagered on Gorth were exultant.
The Portuguese officer politely intercepted Struan. “Good morning, senhor.”
“Morning, Captain Machado,” Struan replied.
“The governor-general wishes you to know that duels are forbidden in Macao.”
“I realize that,” Struan said. “Perhaps you’ll thank him for me and tell him I’d be the last to break Portuguese laws. I know we’re all guests and guests have responsibilities to their hosts.” He shifted the thong of his fighting iron and walked toward the junk. The crowd parted and he saw the animosity on the faces of Gorth’s men and on those who wished him dead. There were many.
Lo Chum was waiting on the high quarterdeck beside Horatio. “Morning, Mass’er.” He held up the shaving gear. “You wantshee?”
“Where’s Gorth, Horatio?”
“His seconds are looking for him.”
Struan prayed that Gorth was flat on his back in a whorehouse, drunk as a fiddler’s bitch. Oh God, let us fight tomorrow!
He began to shave. The crowd watched silently and many crossed themselves, awed by the serenity of the Tai-Pan.
When he had shaved he felt somewhat better. He looked at the sky. Threads of cirrus touched the heavens and the sea was calm as a lake. He called to Cudahy, whom he had taken off
China Cloud. “Guard my back.”
“Yes, sorr.”
Struan stretched out on a hatch and fell asleep at once.
“Good Lord,” Roach said, “he’s inhuman.”
“Yes,” Vivien said, “he’s the Devil, all right.”
“Double the wager, eh, if you’re so confident?”
“No. Not unless Gorth arrives drunk.”
“Say he was to kill Gorth—what about Tyler?”
“They’ll fight to a death, I’m thinking.”
“What’ll Culum do, eh? If Gorth be victor today.”
“Nothing. What can he do? Except hate, maybe. Poor lad, I rather like him. He hates the Tai-Pan anyway—so maybe he’ll bless Gorth, eh? He becomes Tai-Pan, right enough. Where the devil’s Gorth?”
The sun rose relentlessly in the sky. A Portuguese soldier raced out of an adjacent street and spoke animatedly to the officer, who immediately began to march his men at quick time up the
pra
ça. Bystanders began to follow.
Struan awoke to aching reality, every fiber shrieking the need for sleep. He groped leadenly to his feet. Horatio was looking at him strangely.
Gorth’s brutally savaged body was lying in the filth of an alley near the wharves of Chinatown and around the corpse were the bodies of three Chinese. Another Chinese, more dead than alive with the haft of a broken spear in his groin, was lying moaning at the feet of a patrol of Portuguese soldiers.
Traders and Portuguese were crowding for a closer look. Those who could see Gorth turned away sickened.
“The patrol says they heard screaming and fighting,” the Portuguese officer told Struan and others who were near. “When they rushed down here, they saw Senhor Brock on the ground, as he is now. Three or four Chinese were spearing him. When the murdering devils saw our men, they vanished up there.” He pointed at a silent cluster of hovels and twisting alleys and passageways. “The soldiers gave chase but . . .” He shrugged.
Struan knew that he had been saved by the assassins. “I’ll offer a reward for the ones who escaped,” Struan said. “A hundred taels dead, five hundred if alive.”
“Save your ‘dead’ money, senhor. The heathen will merely produce three corpses—the first they can find. As to ‘alive’ ”—the officer jerked a disdainful thumb at the prisoner—“unless that
bastardo degenerado tells us who the others are, your money is quite safe. On second thought, I think the Chinese authorities would be—shall we say—more deft in interrogation.” He spoke sharply in Portuguese and the soldiers put the man on a broken door and carried him away.
The officer flicked a smudge of dirt off his uniform. “A stupid and unnecessary death. Senhor Brock should have known better than to be in this area. It seems that no honor has been satisfied.”
“You be right lucky, Tai-Pan,” one of Gorth’s friends sneered. “Right lucky.”
“Aye. I’m glad his blood’s na on my hands.”
Struan turned his back on the corpse and slowly walked away.
He broke out of the alley and climbed the hill to the ancient fort. Once on the crest, surrounded by sea and sky, he sat on a bench and thanked the Infinite for the blessing of the night and the blessing of the day.